Which means that when I’m busy and have a lot to do, I curse his name, the air he breathes, and everybody who’s ever been nice to him. I suspect his heart is black and terrible and full of hatred toward me personally.

Which is just to say, again: Nick does excellent work.

During my recent talk at AltWWDC, I was asked what makes a good QA person. I think I said, “Doggedness.” Which in my personal lexicon is high praise. (When I think about my own abilities, I know full well that they exist only because I keep chasing sticks and don’t ever stop, not out of any innate talent.)

Here’s the thing about Nick: I think he’s convinced that there’s another bug. And he’ll keep going till he finds it. And, once he finds it, he’s convinced that there’s another bug.

He uses multiple fingers (I like to imagine he has a severed hand he keeps warm just to use for this) and takes a phone call and notices every deranged pixel. Then he writes good bug reports with steps-to-reproduce, often with screen shots, sometimes even with video.

That’s what makes a good QA person. The best are macabre figures who delight in torturing developers, but then make up for it with the succinctness and precision of their bug reports.